The mood inside the Penn State locker room at Hard Rock Stadium the night of Jan. 9 was sullen.
The wounds were fresh and the emotions raw.
It was too soon to examine the 27-24 loss to Notre Dame in a College Football Playoff semifinal and what was next for many of them.
That changed in the next few days when Zakee Wheatley, Zane Durant, Dominic DeLuca, Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton and Nick Dawkins announced they would return for one last ride rather than turn pro.
Their announcement came a few weeks after Drew Allar’s decision to come back.
Penn State senior Dani Dennis-Sutton is regarded as one of the top defensive ends in the country. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)
With all that returning talent, the Nittany Lions have spent the days and nights since that devastating loss in South Florida preparing to make another championship run. They have unfinished business.
“It is not the idea of proving other people wrong,” Dawkins said. “It is the idea of proving ourselves right. We have put in a countless amount of time into the process.
“What is the process? Consistent and daily deposits of work. Consistent and daily deposits of intentional effort into being the best.”
They take the first step in a season they hope ends with a CFP championship when they face 44-point underdog Nevada Saturday at 3:30 (TV-CBS) at Beaver Stadium.
“We’re excited to get out there and play a game,” said Singleton, the former Gov. Mifflin star. “Obviously we’ve been amped up ever since the loss (to Notre Dame). Our mindset has been really different. We just have been more motivated.”
Penn State is ranked second and third in the two major polls, its highest preseason rankings since 1997, for good reason.
The Lions have one of the top quarterbacks in the country in Allar; the best backfield combination in Singleton and Allen; an offensive line that’s rated very highly; and three transfers who are bound to improve the wide receiver position.
They have two of the finest defensive linemen in the country in Dennis-Sutton and Durant; a savvy veteran (DeLuca) and two emerging stars (Tony Rojas and Amare Campbell) at linebacker; and arguably the best group of cornerbacks in the country in A.J. Harris, Elliot Washington II and Audavion Collins.
On top of that, they have one of the most creative offensive coordinators in Andy Kotelnicki and added one of the top defensive coordinators in Jim Knowles, hiring him away from nemesis Ohio State.
“I think we have the tools to win the national championship,” Knowles told me in June. “The goals here are much vaster and higher than anywhere I’ve been because of where the defense is and the history that Coach (James) Franklin has had with playing great defense here already. My job is to elevate it.”
Franklin welcomes the expectations and embraces them. He understands why some fans aren’t buying in yet because of his 1-15 record against top five teams. He also knows that having a team like this is what he has been building toward since he arrived in 2014.
“No one, no one cares about preseason rankings,” Franklin said earlier this month. “I’m not going to frame the preseason rankings and put it in my basement in the man cave. No one cares. No one cares.
“We want to spend our time working on the things that are going to allow us to do the things we want to do this year, starting with Nevada, and creating the habits and behaviors that will get us there. We’re not spending a lot of time talking about goals and those types of things.”
Penn State’s three non-conference games are not supposed to be arduous, but they’re expected to allow the Lions to further develop their depth by playing a lot of guys.
Penn State’s stiffest challenges will be against defending Big Ten champ Oregon Sept. 27 at Beaver Stadium and Nov. 1 at Ohio State, of course, where the Lions haven’t won since 2011.
A trip to Iowa in October won’t be easy and neither will November home games against Indiana and Nebraska.
But it says here that Penn State will go 11-1 in the regular season, earn a return trip to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game and qualify for the CFP. After that, it’s hard to predict how far the Lions will go without knowing the matchups.
For now, they’re solely focused on the process and their daily deposits and have been since January.
“It’s like interest,” Dawkins said. “Every single day you compound the work, the intention, the study, the film, the investment into your body and what do you have?
“I would take it to the bank and run with it. So on our end, we’re super, super excited to see the byproduct of all that intention, of all that effort, of all that work.”
2025 Penn State football schedule
Aug. 30: Nevada, 3:30 p.m., CBS
Sept. 6: FIU, 12 p.m., BTN
Sept. 13: Villanova, 3:30 p.m., FS1
Sept. 27: Oregon, 7:30 p.m., NBC
Oct. 4: at UCLA, TBA
Oct. 11: Northwestern, TBA
Oct. 18: at Iowa, TBA
Nov. 1: at Ohio State, TBA
Nov. 8: Indiana, TBA
Nov. 15: at Michigan State, TBA
Nov. 22: Nebraska, TBA
Nov. 29: at Rutgers, TBA
